


Repetition of position

by acaramelmacchiato



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Gen, chess happens, coded yogurt, it's 1988 and boy were the sunglasses weird, or a potshot at coded yogurt, peripherally - Freeform, shh shhh shh, somewhere vague between mcu canon and every other canon, the continued saga of permanent ussr fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-06
Updated: 2014-05-06
Packaged: 2018-01-23 18:18:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,865
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1574993
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/acaramelmacchiato/pseuds/acaramelmacchiato
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Winter Soldier and the Black Widow go undercover at a Soviet chess competition and those are the facts you need.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Repetition of position

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Carmarthen](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Carmarthen/gifts).



 

Natasha kept her eyebrows where they were, but in another life she would have lifted them, one at a time. “You know my portfolio,” she said, not too slowly. “And you want me to rig a chess game.”

“That’s overstating it,” said Leonov, her KGB liaison. “Look, I’m managing expectations; I’ve been very clear that we can’t make him win but we can at least get him to a game, give him a shot, after that it’s up to him. Here’s what you need to know, it is vitally important that Verelav Eingorn be pulled from the reserve list at the Chess Championship, but beyond that, whatever. Tell you what, though, I’d give anything to be there. Fascinating. Beliavsky is a particular hero of mine.”

“It’s a chess game,” she said. “You can’t sign something? We’d be talking about minutes over days.”

“A tournament, and I don’t make the rules, I just make the promises, and I’ve promised our best. So. What does the Black Widow know about chess?"

“A bit above-board for me.”

“Well, I doubt the Winter Soldier knows a damn thing either so I’ll give you, what, a week of training with an internal expert? Fine.”

The Winter Soldier might have been the world’s greatest spy but he was the world’s worst colleague.

They had met more than nine times and he never remembered her, he didn’t know how to drive a car or shave, and he invariably escalated even the smallest exchange of information into a firefight. “The Winter Soldier?” she said, and let her disappointment bleed into her voice.

“I promised our best. That’s him and you.”

“People keep saying. You know I’ve been introduced to him nine times? I’m not inconspicuous, especially when I’m saying _glad to meet you my name’s Natasha_.”

“Plan what you’ll say on the tenth time, then,” said Leonov. 

 

* * *

  

Natasha introduced herself to the Winter Soldier for the tenth time a week later, after running into him on the fourth floor of the Lubyanka Building. He was standing in front of the drinking fountain, dressed in slacks and a checkered sweater, looking as if he was trying to figure out how to take a drink. When he saw her he glared. There was a clearly-outlined Makarov pistol holstered under his sweater and between his shoulder blades, which she was going to have to talk to him about before they got arrested.

“Morning,” she said. “I’m Natasha Romanova. Your chess partner.”

“Chess partner?” said the Winter Soldier, sounding annoyed. “I have press credentials.”

Natasha resolved to take it one day at a time. She had a pair of mirrored blue plastic sunglasses in her hair like a headband, and she flipped them down over her eyes. “It was a joke,” she said, letting the coolness of her gesture sink in as she walked away. “Don’t worry about it.”

A car was waiting outside to take them to the International Hotel.

It was a hot day, and the driver had left the backseat windows cracked. The Winter Soldier cranked his up, and sat with his shoulders forward from the leather bench seat, body angled away from the door enough that he made it clear he was armed with more than just the obvious.

Natasha let the driver get about a block away before she leaned over to get his attention.

“Take it around to Turgenevskaya Square and have a cigarette, OK?”

“Sure,” said the driver, and he drove down to the square and took the keys with him when he left the car. He’d parked in front of a bus stop, close enough that if they didn’t leave in five minutes they’d be towed.

“What are you doing?” asked the Winter Soldier, and leaned forward a little more. He must have had a rifle scope somewhere.

“I just want to agree on some terms, like undercover. What it means to you. For example: Would you say that Makarov pistol in your shirt is more undercover _,_ or more _obvious to the untrained observer_?”

“Listen,” he said. “We just need to make it in the door. I can get upstairs and keep this to under ten minutes.”

She blinked, and let her sunglasses slip down so he could see her do it. “You’re serious?”

They should have coordinated on a plan more than ten minutes before the clock started on their operation. She blamed the Winter Soldier, who never scheduled off-the-clock time or working lunches or simple conversation but always appeared with a plan and the tools to execute it. He refused to collaborate or compromise.

He really was the world’s worst colleague.

He shrugged. “Sure. Lose one of the qualified players, promote someone from the reserve.”

“You know,” she said. “People assume I’m vicious. And I’ll be the first to tell you I can be a little cold. But I’m not about to shoot a guy in the head so someone’s nephew can have a shot at playing an important chess game. And that’s not even sentimentality, it’s just a bad plan. Assassination is an assassin’s last resort, except abroad. You know?”

“Did you have a better idea?”

“Yes?” she said, and took her sunglasses off fully so he could see how incredulous she was. "One where we don't end up in the zone, dressed like idiots."

“Compare one bullet to a week of event passes and a hotel room. Your time is valuable,” said the Winter Soldier, and stopped, clearly unsure how to comparatively price his own time. He frowned a little, beginning to sense how much they weren’t on the same page, and twisted around to see if the bus was coming.

Natasha exhaled for a long time, and then she checked for the bus too. “OK,” she said, finally, exaggerating patience. “Since this is a vanity project, let’s try to minimize cleanup. And consequences.”

He blinked, and then capitulated so easily it surprised her. “Fine,” he said. “If you want.”

“Let’s see if we can win a chess game without killing anyone,” she clarified, then smirked a little at her own joke.

 

* * *

  

So the Black Widow and the Winter Soldier, operationally codenamed with two very forgettable bylines, checked into the new International Hotel with Pravda press passes and fully-formed cover stories. Natasha was wearing a brown wig with gray in it and a wool skirt, acting excited, and there was nothing she could really do about the Winter Soldier’s natural woozy grouchiness except bank on it striking the right note among other reporters on the international chess beat.

It was not a very well-constructed operation, but it was also not the toughest spot she’d been in either.

She set out the plan in her hotel room:

“Mikhail Tal has a reputation; he’s afraid of headaches, he drinks too much, he’s not healthy. Yusupov won’t play against an invalid, and so someone will be substituted in, Eingorn is the highest scorer; he's the most natural choice.”

“How does Tal become an invalid?” asked the Winter Soldier. He looked grumpy and harmless, having recently emptied his sweater of firearms and seated himself on the hotel bed, where he had become instantly interested in the overhead ceiling fan.

“A little bit of anything,” she said, and then held up a finger. “Short of you shooting him.”

“I’d be done already,” he pointed out.

“But isn’t this more fun?” She wasn’t sure if fun was the right word, but it was more _something --_ cleaner came to mind, first. 

The Winter Soldier looked at the ceiling fan.

“I’m going to poison him,” she said. “Tomorrow morning. Just to be totally clear. If it works, I’ll send you a bilberry yogurt in the press benches. If it doesn’t, I’ll send plain, and that’s your cue to kill everyone and get smug,” she stopped, and sighed. “It’s a chess joke. 1978, Korchoi vs. Karpov. Coded yogurt? It wasn’t coded, of course, but some people will say anything if they’re going to defect.”

“I won’t eat yogurt,” said the Winter Soldier. He really was very difficult to work with.

“Whatever. Throw it out, then.”

“I will,” said the Winter Soldier.

“Alright then, Scary Kasparov,” said Natasha in English, and headed to the door. "Let's get to it."

“What?” said the Winter Soldier, whose perfect understanding of English stopped just short of jokes.

 

* * *

  

The tournament had an air of quiet, specific excitement that Natasha enjoyed; it was a treat to see people who considered themselves head and shoulders above their peers gathered into crowds. Even the spectators were crotchety and egomaniacal, alone qualified to speak critically about the Soviet Union’s smartest men and women.

Natasha took out her notepad and started grabbing interviews, while the Winter Soldier lingered back behind the cameras.

By the end of the week there was a line for the telephone, and writers from really far out were radioing their newsrooms. Tal was out, Eingorn was in, and the Winter Soldier had acquired the trick of standing in a crowd without looking hugely suspicious.

Natasha handed him a bilberry yogurt and looked at her watch. “It’s barely one. Think we’ll get the hotel room refunded?”

“Too suspicious. You know people are already x-raying everything they can get their hands on.”

Natasha shook her head. “Chess is for people who don’t want to deal with the stakes of espionage.”

“Chess is more straightforward,” said the Winter Soldier, and turning to leave he handed her the yogurt back. “Do you want this?”

She took it, and sniffed it a little because it had taken an hour and a half to buy. “Sure. Hey. We should play sometime. Not a real game unless it’s a challenge, you know?”

“Chess?” his eyebrows lifted.

“Yeah, but actual chess. With the board, and the boring silence, and no shooting? Maybe in a park.”

The Winter Soldier made a facial expression that was almost friendly enough to be classed as a smile. “Sure,” he said. “Whenever. Not here, but whenever.”

 

* * *

 

She didn’t see the Winter Soldier for another eight months, and then he showed up in Kandahar flying passenger in a Kazan Ansat.

They pulled her out at Sarposa, and the pilot tossed her a headset.

“Appreciate it,” she said, when she got her breath back. “Really. Friends in need.”

“No problem,” said the pilot, shouting though the headset quality was good. They were heading toward the airport. “All this guy. Took care of your list and your cleanup, thought you might be still down here, so we came to look.”

She shot a sidelong glance at the Winter Soldier, staring impassively out the triangular side window, in a headset and aviator-style wire sunglasses. He didn’t seem moved by her gratitude, so she tapped him on the shoulder.

“Thanks,” she said. “Hey -- I might let you win that chess game.”

“What?” the Winter Soldier tilted his sunglasses down and then back up to squint at her, and then he turned back around to the window. “I don’t play chess,” he said, and shook his head.

“Hey, sorry!” said the pilot. “This is Natasha Romanova, she’s KGB. Or. KGB enough.”

The Winter Soldier looked at her again, did not recognize her, and shrugged. “Agent Romanova. You’re welcome, ma’am.” 


End file.
